In many jobs, it is necessary for a worker to do his/her job at an elevation or height. Similarly equipment, materials and products may be moved and transferred at height. As may be appreciated, there are some issues in working at any elevated position, including the possibility of an inadvertent fall and injury to the worker, inadvertent dropping of equipment, materials and products and resulting damage to workers, structures, buildings and the like, as a consequence. Therefore, precautions are often taken (for example at work sites, construction sites and/or buildings) to reduce or minimize the potential of accidents. These accidents can include a worker slipping or falling from his/her elevated work site, and equipment, materials and products falling from height.
Fall arrest is the form of fall protection which involves the safe stopping before impact of a person or load already falling. Generally, this is not only used but legally required at various work-sites. Some regulations require that an elevated worker be secured by a line to catch and suspend them should he/she fall from the surface on which he/she is working. The line must be fixed to a secure anchorage connector point or tie-off point should primary support of the worker fail or release, so that it will arrest the fall, hold and support the weight of the (falling) worker. The other end of the line is usually secured to the worker, such as with a harness. In such cases the line is referred to as lifeline. To provide such protection, and to also maintain mobility for the worker, retractable reels are often used, and allow the worker to pull out or feed out a safety lifeline or tether to allow them to access the workspace around their tie-off point.
To further prevent injury in the case of a fall, regulations associated with the tie-off point for a worker require that the tie-off point be (where possible) located above the elevated work surface on which the worker is located. In the case of buildings, usually, as the building is constructed, the worker, and work surface are not yet located at the top of the building or at the roof level, the tie-off point may be located at a sufficient distance above the work surface. In such a case, the structures of the building provide suitable tie-off points above the work surface.
There are two major types of fall arrest (not including contact/impact with lower surface or hazard): 1) general fall arrest, such as nets; and 2) personal fall arrest, such as lifelines. The most common manifestation of fall arrest in the workplace is the Personal Fall Arrest System, or PFAS (normally includes a “lifeline”). To arrest a fall in a controlled manner, it is desirable that there is sufficient energy absorption capacity in the system. Without this designed energy absorption, the fall can only be arrested by applying large forces to the worker and to the anchorage connector, which can result in either or both being severely affected.
So, as currently known, an anti-fall system comprises four elements referred to as “ABCD”s of fall arrest:                A—Anchorage—a fixed structure or structural adaptation, often including an anchorage connector, to which the other components of the PFAS are rigged.        B—Body Wear—a full body harness worn by the worker.        C—Connector—(also referred to interchangeably as a “safety lifeline”) a subsystem component connecting the harness to the anchorage connector—such as a lanyard.        D—Deceleration Device—a subsystem component designed to dissipate the forces associated with a fall arrest event.        
In addition, “Anchorage Connector” (“AC”) refers in industry to a device between the anchorage and the connector.
Each of these elements has been considered critical to the effectiveness of a personal fall arrest system. In a most common fall arrest system, the vertical lifeline is a stranded rope that is connected to an anchorage connector above, and to which the user's personal protection equipment (“PPE”), such as harness is attached either directly or through a “shock absorbing” (energy absorbing) lanyard. This is often then called a “safety lifeline.
There is much room for improvement in the PPE area, particularly relating to the absorbance of energy on a fall. It is an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate the above disadvantages.